No more career teachers in North Carolina. That’s the goal of legislation introduced by Phil Berger, the President Pro Tem of the State Senate in North Carolina.
The experienced, high-performing teachers would get a four-year contract.
Others would get shorter contracts.
No tenure for any teachers.
Lots of performance pay built in.
Bonuses would be tied to new teacher evaluation programs now under development.
Apparently, Senator Berger has no idea that merit pay has never worked anywhere.
Nor does he know that there is no successful teacher evaluation program anywhere, despite the hundreds of millions expended on creating one.
His goal seems to be to make North Carolina teachers teach to the test at every possible moment of the school day.
North Carolina was once a progressive state.
No more.
Teacher salaries in North Carolina now rank 46th in the nation.
School spending has fallen to 48th.
This is sad. Sad for the children. Sad for the teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In Missouri a group wants to change tenure laws through an initiative petition to ban in in the state Constitution.
Click to access 14-024.pdf
These idiots don’t even know what tenure is. BTW, will police and fire still have the right to “due process”?
The biggest lie told by the reformers is that “tenure” is a lifetime job. It isn’t in K-12 and never has been.
“BTW, will police and fire still have the right to ‘due process’?”
That’s precisely what I was thinking. Tenure, of course, is just due process rights, and it is something fire fighters and police still have. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to take it away from teachers, but still leave it for others? If having due process rights means that lazy, incompetent people can keep their jobs for life, don’t we want to take those rights away from other important public employees?
Or are the privatizers not yet interested in privatizing fire and police?
It is hypocritical, but police and firefighters shouldn’t rest easy – their due process rights are in jeopardy too. It’s just that it’s easier to take rights and benefits away from those awful union-stifled, lazy, entrenched, entitled (and most importantly, of course, largely female) teachers first. But that just gives a foot in the door to expand that to all “public sector workers”. During the CTU strike, the police and firefighter unions were very supportive because they see how teachers are just the canary in the coal mine.
Agree totally. Tenure does NOT mean life time employment as a teacher in a district. People are ignorant about this.
The reformers deliberately conflate K-12 “tenure” with college and university tenure, which is in fact a lifetime appointment after seven years in the trenches. It shouldn’t even be called “tenure” anyway for K12 and instead be called what it is, and that is “post-probationary status,” which is what it is called in Nevada, among other states.
It is laughably easy to fire teachers. As for administrators, it takes an act of Congress to fire them. They merely get a slap on the wrist and are moved around or “fail up” into the central office.
I will add there are different ways principals and other teachers get rid of teachers. Now, districts will lie to the public and say only a handful of teachers are “fired” each year, but that is only counting teachers who bother to go far enough in the administrative process realm to have a “hearing,” which in turn is invariably rigged against teachers. (I know this from personal experience how corrupt the process is.) Most teachers who are pushed out of their careers take what are called “settlements,” but in reality they are nothing but severance packages which are common in the private sector which amount to maybe a month’s pay after the lawyers get their cut of the deal. Other teachers take early retirement. And still other teachers don’t qualify for “tenure” in the first place since the principals non-renew their contracts so they aren’t counted as “fired” even though they are for all intents and purposes.
THOUSANDS of teachers are fired (including terminated with hearings, non-renewed, forced to resign, forced to retire) from education systems around the country each year, and the vast majority haven’t committed any offense worthy of it.
I meant “other administrators,” not “other teachers.” I am suffering from vertigo today.
Police and Firefighters are reliably Republican voters though. Just sayin’…
…and very sad for the USA.lhs1117@aol.com
[This is sad. Sad for the children. Sad for the teachers.]
Diane, these were my exact thoughts as I read through your post. And what a gift to hear my thoughts be your words at the end of your post.
I hope the CCSS is exposed soon because too much is at stake. Wall Street will take a hit. That’s what will be held over our heads. I would like to know more about how states inform lawmakers generally about education policy & finance. I also want to know who was pulling Race to the Top & CCSS strings in states.
Bottom line is, you’ll never get career teachers who know what they’re doing. If that’s what the State wants, they got it.
See you in Raleigh on Thursday Diane. Will live tweet and blog your appearance there to push back against these egregious policies.
What are you talking about? Where when?
http://bit.ly/11j1yIz
This is what I saw coming when I quit. I knew the leadership wasn’t listening to me or anyone else that wrote letters after me. Why would they care if one teacher quits, even if that letter did go “viral”? I wasn’t the first, and I won’t be the last. And NC lawmakers, I hate to say, don’t care one way or the other. In fact, the more serious and professional teachers that leave, the more room for the temps who will stand in front of huge classes, reading scripts, and making sure students are working silently on the test prep on their trusty laptops.
Your courage was not in vain, Kris.
My North Carolina teacher fellow fellow at the Yale National Teachers Initiative Summer Intensive seminar had high-scoring AP students and low morale. The destruction of gifted and dedicated teachers goes on.
Barbara McDowell Dowdall Philadelphia Sent from my iPhone
Term limits.
I am saddened. Deeply saddened. I’ve never treated my career as an entitlement. Tenure has only meant due process. It’s been a privilege to serve the children of this state.
Mr. Nielson, I think you are correct. The biggest threat to the status quo are educated citizens. Now there are assurances that our NC citizens will not be independent thinkers. I’m beyond frustrated and don’t know what to do.
The politicians just don’t listen…and I don’t think people are informed enough to know what show is really going on “backstage” in politics.
Diane, who are the contributors to the politicians’ campaigns? Who has bought this state?
Art Pope and others.
I believe North Carolina also passed a law already this term that took the cap off the number of charter schools in the state.
I’m so disgusted to teach in this state. Our kids deserve a chance to learn and grow. Our teachers (WE) deserve a chance to teach them.
Diane always tells me that the tide is turning. Remind me again. This may be the last straw. Not that I’ll have a choice.
But, remember, it’s all for the kids! Right?
Some state has to rank 46th in the nation in teacher salary, some state has to rank 48th in spending. Would it be better if it was some other state?
what if teacher salaries were equitable across the nation? what if spending was equitable across the nation? are these notions too socialist for us?
Then teachers in rural areas of my state would live very well or teachers in New York City would have a very low standard of living. Which would you think best?
equitable. not equal.
You could be Utah. We rank 51st in per pupil expenditure (nearly $1,000 less than the next closest state) and 49th in teacher salary. Yay!
Which state should be ranked 49th in teacher pay?
Obviously there has to be someone at 46th (even if we’d like all states to be 25th equal) but it’s not the 46th itself that important but the trajectory. You’d think over the medium term that standard of living would be fairly stationary so that when a state does a dive in spending then it’s not about matching pay to local standards of living but ratcheting pay down.
I teach in NC. The new teacher evaluation instrument is about 11 pages long. What we are being asked to do is impossible. We have Common Core, Race to the Top, an exam created by the NCDPI that we 1) don’t know what’s on it 2) can’t see a copy of it 3) have to evaluate our students by it and have it count 25% of their final grade and 4) be rated as effective according to the scores. Salaries here have been frozen for five years. Teachers are treated unprofessionally and have no recourse because we are a hire/fire at will state. Do NOT come to NC to teach. It is a nightmare.
Sent from my iPad
They’ve already gotten the message – the modal value for teacher experience is 1 year.
And it’s interesting to see you write the following words, “can’t see a copy of it (test)”.
Here is what it has come to in NC, make NO mistake – the teachers that can teach to the test the best (or worse, if you know what I mean), will be viewed as the best teachers. Period.
The whole thing is a sham.
Took a 1/2 year job in NC. Low morale, the fact I did my work made me look bad compared to the apathetic care-less teachers. Contract not renewed. Testing was crazy, no room to teach students to think, they only care about the 60 facts on the test.
Equitable is a tough nut to crack. How would you know that salaries across the country are equatable other than giving people the chance to teach in New York City or Dudley County High School and see which they choose? If no one chooses New York Citry, the wages would not be equitable. If there are some teachers who choose NYC and some choose to teach in Dudley County High School, would you judge the salaries as equitable?
Somehow it works in almost every other industry. If they didn’t pay an equitable wage, they’d have trouble finding quality workers relative to other places. In education you have the ‘dedication to a cause’ that allows us to take an approach that is less focused on the money, much to our own detriment.
When I worked in tech and business consulting, there was no barrier to working in another state. I just applied, interviewed, and then moved there. In education, licenses aren’t always portable and we have to deal with state DepEds which are right behind the DMV in their efficiency and responsiveness.
Equitable is difficult to define. In my department faculty are paid between $75,000 and $250,000 a year. Is it equitable? I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that each person has made a choice to remain on the job.
I have quite a few friends who are professors. They wouldn’t say that they have the ability to come and go. Where is the market that isn’t oversaturated with PhDs? Most of them feel lucky not to be stuck in an adjunct position, even though for the most part, they could do much better in some form of consulting.
Just because you can abuse people up to the point where they quit the industry or move states, doesn’t make it ok to do so. The whole idea that I’m free to quit doesn’t make treating me like dirt excusable.
TE,
Are you the department chair (you wrote “in my department”) or do you mean the department in which I work? Just wondering.
Duane
The one I work in. As a non-tenure track faculty member I am not eligible to be the chair of the department.
Wilbert,
The key part of you post is where you say “for the most part they could do much better in some form of consulting”. I think what you mean by that is that they could earn more money consulting, but a job is more than money. A job is a bundle of attributes including money, but also including location, working conditions, autonomy, scheduling, etc. That your acuantences have chosen to remain in the academy suggests they prefer it to the alternatives.
Salaries are one of the major ways an employer can compensate for other aspects of a job. Take location, for example. I teach at a university in a big square state in the middle of the country. There are some that would prefer to live in a more densely populated area like Boston, and hiring those folks would require a much higher salary offer than my university is likely to make. Others might prefer a small college town, and my university need not pay them a premium to move. Add in the two body problem and the notion of an equitable salary can get pretty messy very quickly.
What keeps them there for the most part is how much time and energy that they dedicated to their profession. They put up with abuse to be able to keep doing something that they love. Again, that you like your job shouldn’t be a reason to make it more difficult for you every year.
As you know, they are under tremendous pressure to keep students happy, keep students from having to really work at a university or graduate level, because now everyone is a customer, not someone trying to prove their ability in academia.
It is more than money, but, in the end, money is what puts food on the table and their children through college.
That’s what happens when you let conservatives take over your state. This is awful about North Carolina. They used to have a good special ed curriculum like Wisconsin did. Georgia and North Carolina held the fort as the moderate bastions of the South and now Satan is just taking over. It’s almost as though the Confederacy is sneaking back in.
I teach in a rural area with a high rate of poverty in NC. The changes that are being made are crazy and driving good teachers not only out of my school, but out of the profession. The new teacher evaluation has 6 standards, the 6th was added this year. It is used to measure teacher effectiveness based on EOG test scores. This will eventually be used for merit pay when that is passed. The problem with standard 6 is that if you teach in an untested grade, you receive your rating based on how the school performs as a whole. I’m a kindergarten teacher and I bust my hump year in and year out. My students are at or above grade level when they leave me dispite half of them starting the year speaking no English. This year however I am considered “ineffective” based on school wide scores of students who aren’t even in my class. My students are making progress and are at grade level but that doesn’t matter. We have had our pay frozen for 4 years and we even had to pay back a portion of our paycecks 3 years ago so the state could balance their budget and now this! Needless to say teachers are running for the door. These politicians need to realize that this is just as much of a social issue as it is an education issue. I wonder how they would feel if their ratings were measured on things out of their control.
We are often vilified because we are state employees and people think that we are wasting their tax dollars. Anti public education fanatics blame unions, but we don’t have one. I would say that Recruiting and retaining good teachers will be difficult but I really don’t think they care. The direction they are headed will make staffing in high poverty areas difficult. Anyone with experience will run for a high scoring school. Anyone with a brain can tell you that there is a connection between high poverty rates and test scores. There’s a reason that the best predictor of student success is highest level of education in the home.
What is the source for the 46th in the country ranking and 48th in student spending? The census shows North Carolina at number 23 with data from 2007. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/ranks/rank20.html
Another website shows a “comfort” salary level of 35th. http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/
I am sure salary and pay are two different things, perhaps salary includes the cost of benefits etc and pay is gross income.
North Carolina was a progressive state. The last few govenors were pro education and the universites are top notch. Sadly the other party is now in charge and trying to balance the budget at the expense of the children.
NC Policy Watch has later figures. NC has slipped in funding public schools.
Perhaps, there is only one word nationwide that may at least begin a conversation about what teachers should do across the country, at the same time, and for the same amount of time:
STRIKE.
My thoughts too. My district wants administrators to go on year round contracts, but they won’t pay us our per diem rate for the extra days. We’ve also had no raise in 5 years. I’m pretty fed up.
Either that Robert, or sueing state departments of education. What would we ask for in a strike?
Public school teachers should get together and start their own private schools and do it right. The elites won’t bother private schools, and you can bring your innovation and creativity. If you can’t beat them, join them! Public education is going to be gone- let’s face the facts. It is only a matter of time. The common core will be the final act in this play. At least by creating some old-school, excellent private schools we can keep the fire burning during these dark times. It would be similar to what the Irish monks did in the Middle Ages. We can preserve the knowledge worth keeping. While the public schools are reading lawnmower repair guides and computer manuals (online), our kids will be reading Goethe, Shakespeare, and Conrad. We could keep the prices down, classes small, etc. We all have a lot of knowledge and experience. This is the only way left. Just let them destroy the public school system. Teachers alone can’t stop them! The more I read this blog, the more depressed I get. We need to strike out on our own.
That is the idea behind charter schools, though private schools would work equally well for families with the means to pay.
But would that not mean that only privileged enough kids would attend our newly formed private schools . . . and the rest? Where are they going? We would have a two tier system much like Edwardian England.
I like the idea of us forming our own schools, but maybe we should consider doing so and having our own internal localized union rather than belonging to faux organizations like the UFT, NYSUT, and the AFT to name a few. The very big unions are in on this reform and are clearly not in the teachers’ camp for the most part.
If we could form our own schools and manage them as if we, the teachers, were a private company, then maybe we could have more autonomy and less inequity.
Of course, this model is so speculative.
Or, maybe charters should become unionized.
Your last sentence, Robert, is the solution. However, the reason the government, at least in Louisiana has intentionally caused the charters is in order to destroy the unions. By the way, it is the AFT in Louisiana that has the state in court challenging the voucher and teacher abuse laws the Republicans passed last year. Even though we are a right to work state, organization has a great deal of influence and when the governor and state superintendent attack the teachers they normally say “unions”. They are definitely NOT behind the destruction of the schools. Size and financing with a national organization makes unions more effective, at least in the South. Remember, pre charter days, the GAE and GFT in Georgia put Gov. Roy Barnes out of office after one term. He was using the exact same hate speech against teachers that the destroyers use now and we DISPOSED OF HIM. He has not been able to get a public office since.
How would you keep costs down in private schools?
I don’t want to teach kids who can afford private schools. I want to teach the kids I currently teach – kids who are desperately poor. Well, I really would like for every kid in this country to NOT be desperately poor, but until that happens, I want to teach those kids.
And I believe that if teachers abandoned public education and struck out on their own, those currently in power (Gates, Duncan, Murdoch, Koch Bros, Rhee, etc.) would find a way to tear down whatever those teachers created.
We are the enemy. Our students are the prize. If we take the prize with us, they will come after us to steal the prize.
Cynical. Yup.
Right on sister. Nothing like tough little survivor children. Nothing like kids who regard their teacher as next in line after Mama! Inner city kids appreciate their teachers. The two years I taught in middle class schools were awful. The kids were stuck up and their mamas were always up in the principal’s or the superintendent’s or Special Ed. Director’s office trying to undermine the teachers and throwing their weight around based on who they knew. One of the worst, her ex-husband was on the school board and her current husband was the biggest supplier of jobs for our work program. Daughter was a spoiled little pill and I was startled by the lack of apparent education and intelligence in this mother who caused so many problems. She was basically a redneck who had married well. I would think really rich ones would be even worse. You would never wish poverty on anybody, but the strength and beauty of inner city kids is remarkable.
How would you keep costs down in private schools? Good question kindergeek. Teacher salaries would be lower. Funds for supplies would be less. Teachers would have to do more jobs than we do now, like maybe maintenance of the building. Someone would need to handle the business side of the school, like taxes and salaries and so forth.
But on the other hand, think of the field trips one could do, to free museums and parks and concerts. We could use the Habitat Restore for building supplies. We could work with other similar-minded private schools and share business expertise. We could share subject teachers, like piano and music and computer science among several like-minded schools.
I have thought starting a charter for kids with special education and glbt, parenting, homeless etc. Like a hodgepodge of kids who need a lot of attention and no one else wants. Of course money and facilities are always a consideration and it seems churches, larger churches, are often the only groups that have suitable space.
But when the charters were getting started in New Orleans after Katrina they would not give a group of teachers one while they were fawning after a group of nuns and some businessmen from the Middle East. I know this because I helped write the charter. And when the Muslim school in New Orleans, an established school, applied for vouchers, they suddenly withdrew their application. The media never carried the reason why. Thus,all but one of the voucher schools are conservative religious. In Baton Rouge there is one non-religious charter and it is special needs. The rest are religious.
Doesn’t that tell you something about the entire charter movement and who the state wants to run their schools?
A private would only perpetuate the problem of selective admissions and creaming off the best students from the publics, the ones they compete for and generally the ones who can pay unless they can get vouchers. A good one would, however, keep at least some of the veteran educators employed and cut out the TFAs.
Dr Ravitch…I’m so glad that you’ll be coming here to Raleigh next week on the heels of this awful and angering news to bring the truth and your voice for millions of parents, students, and teachers.
Please bring your rhetorical flamethrower, as you’ll be speaking from just a few blocks away from our state legislature!
pardon…you’ll be here THIS week, on Thursday!
even better!
Will be in Charlotte on Wednesday, Raleigh on Thursday
No, charter schools will churn teachers (hire and fire them). They will never be successful. Experience is the most important factor in teaching. Teachers, like any other professionals, get better with time! The charter school teachers also have to do that test prep garbage. There is more to life than scantron tests. What a joke!
The charter teachers I know work with an axe hanging over their heads. That is no way to develop good, professional teachers. Who would ever want to share with or help other teachers in that climate? It is completely WRONG! A climate of fear may be your cup of tea in business, but it is a bad concept for education. But the morons will do it the wrong way, instead of asking even ONE veteran teacher for his or her advice. Go waste your billions! The charter schools will be a huge failure for these reasons.
A good private school could help its teachers develop and get better over time. The staff becomes like a family, with everyone helping each other get better-get it. This is how it was in the excellent public schools. You don’t need some jerk threatening to fire them all the time. Your kids just have to take the ACT or SAT, and that’s that. If a teacher is poor, then you remove them. (not based on test scores) This is what the private sector doesn’t understand. Merit pay, threats to fire, are not going to inspire any teachers I know. We didn’t get into this for the money. Not everything is for money. Most teachers I know want to share their love for their subject, and become better over time. They traded off high pay for stability and learning a craft. Now, they are taking away pensions and stability- good luck with that! I would have stayed in business, if that were the situation. Little did I know the terrible American business practices I experienced in the mid 1990s would follow me into teaching. Get me out of here! Good luck finding good teachers under those circumstances. No, private schools are very different than Big Brother charter schools! You geniuses could have saved yourselves millions of dollars just by consulting one good, veteran teacher. Unbelievable! What a waste of resources.
No, it is not like this in business, at least at the higher end. I was never treated this poorly as a professional until I became a teacher. It wasn’t too bad in the early 00s, but after coming back to the country in 2011 after teaching overseas for 4 years, it is completely miserable. Somehow, if businesses that were considered top in their field trusted me without any surveilance and never put me down, told me how much I sucked, how I was failing, it seems like that model might work in education.
If I had known then what I know now, I would have kept the 3X my current salary (16 years ago!), kept my nights and weekends for myself and family, and not had any of this aggravation. This is not a business model. This is not how Gates treats Microsoft employees. This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Private schools have a problem with retaining teachers because the pay and benefits are grossly inferior to that of public schools. I will say I was treated better in the private school I had worked at than the last two years I worked as a regular teacher at Washoe County. That was a nightmare. No support, incompetent or crazy principals, corrupt district-level administrators, no due process rights, worthless and treacherous union, you name it.
No, the reformers wouldn’t give a damn about us. We aren’t taking tax money, get it? We would take poor kids with vouchers, etc. All of a sudden, vouchers start to look good from a private school perspective. Eventually, I see private vocational high schools for those kids more interested in automotive, wood working, computers, electrical, etc. I see private high schools dedicated to literature, modern languages, etc. There would be private math, science academies. (That would have been my nightmare! ha!) This would allow kids to take a more narrow focus during high school. We are wrong to just say that all kids should be intellectuals, and then brand those that don’t make it as “failures.” Listen, many kids probably would be better off in trade schools. I don’t think the solution for America is to just send everyone to college. That’s not going to work, especially now. Kids would be free to find a high school more suited to their interests, etc. There would be high schools dedicated to the performing arts. It could be pretty cool, and we would have less drop outs in the cities. This would be more like the German system, and a much more realistic system, if you ask me.
I’m with you. 17 years of education for a job to make a cup of coffee is a broken system.
what about elementary kids?
and vouchers are part of the prize.
kids and their data are part of the prize.
control of the future of this country is the prize.
and to get to the prize, those in power will do anything and everything to take us out of the equation.
they don’t want vocational schools UNLESS they control them.
they don’t want a German-style (or Finnish-style or any-style) educational system UNLESS they control it.
it’s about control. they will squash us to continue to hold onto the power that we gave them.
I teach in NC. I don’t give a damn about test scores or my teacher effectiveness on any evaluation. Every day I do my best to give my students opportunities to read, think, problem solve, create, and have some fun. Asking questions, perseverance, and becoming a more independent learner are behaviors I work to foster in the classroom. They are much more worthy of my time and energy than the deluge of tests being handed down to teachers. If I’m doing something wrong, then someone should fire me. I won’t play their game.
You would care if you had a family, a couple of decades of experience, and you have worked your butt off on behalf of kids (at substandard pay) in hopes that one day you will be able to take advantage of a pension and benefits after retirement.
I don’t mind sacrificing riches for students, but I do mind being excused from a profession in which I have invested so much. Moreover, I definitely mind being “excused” because some republican (or democrat) wants to save the state money by not paying my pension and benefits or paying a lower level because I retire early or am “excused”.
I do have a family and I do have two decades of experience. I just won’t be miserable in a job I do everyday. I, too, hate that the GOP wants to be rid of us teachers in order to save a few bucks. I just can’t teach every day unless there is some joy and realization that I’m valued.
Sad for America.
Too bad the people in power, imposing all these wrong-headed policies, don’t think that.
What the politicians and RHEEformers want is for teachers of this state to remain ignorant of what is going on. That way, there’ll be no fight.
I teach in a county that has a charter school that is now opening a high school. My high school is a very poor school, but this has been the best teaching experience for me in nearly twenty years.
My kids are inquisitive, creative, and intelligent. The problem is that they come from very poor homes. With the state wanting to get rid of textbooks, in favor of digital literacy, wouldn’t that mean that class sizes would soar to over 75? I’m speculating, of course.
How does a state eviscerate the public education sector? By bringing in VAM, shoddy teacher evaluations, CC and TESTING, larger classes, removing tenure while getting rid of veteran teachers and those pesky pensions,
I’ve wanted to teach since I was seven years old. Why do we as teachers settle for less than we deserve? The logic of “reforming” says that ten to twenty percent of teachers are ineffective. I think that number is too high. I see colleagues every day educating kids in unique, creative, and meaningful ways. We continue to give our best to a system that doesn’t value us (pun intended) in positive ways.
It’s all about profit. There is nothing left for the billionaires to exploit for profit. Trees, water, petroleum, precious minerals all have limits. Except the children. Our children are being “MINED” for profiteers. Why couldn’t the reformers have gone into the funeral business instead?
They are quickly turning public education into a tragedy. Chaos reigns and I for one will not give up.
Thank you, Diane, for coming to NC this week.
I hope all writers from NC will go to http://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org and join us! And I hope to see all of you tomorrow in Raleigh!
Page,
I hope that publicschoolsfirst in NC has joined the Network for Public Education
Diane,
What has been the role of the Broad Foundation and/or ALEC in North Carolina?
NC hosted ALEC last year. Check the ALEC Exposed website to see if any state legislators are members. I don’t know. NC legislature has heavy influence of your own billionaire Art Pope, who supports vouchers. NC is a right to work state. Plan underway to take due process away from teachers and award bonuses for test scores despite lack of evidence. ALEC? Or just homegrown? Same result.
It’s time for the rank and file to stand up—or just SIT DOWN—and refuse to leave the school when this vile practice takes place.
AND, if they take the time to explain all of this to their students and the parents, they WILL get them on their side.
If the rank and file STAY PUT, or close down the school or do whatever is necessary—let America watch when paid thugs come in to beat them, spray them, lock them up—with the families of America watching this.
Henry Ford buckled when his plants were seized by the people who actually DID THE WORK. Teachers will get parents like me to stand with them all the way when the Privatizers threaten to send in their Pinkerton guards, with the TFA scabs following meekly behind.
We parents WON’T stand for this. And they’ll soon find out if they push this too hard.
From your end of the state.
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Yinzercation > Date: April 9, 2013, 11:37:40 AM EDT > To: gtnbassoon@aol.com > Subject: [New post] Op-ed, Opt Out, Occupy > Reply-To: “Yinzercation” > > >